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Hilli Levin

Poetry

Richard Siken

Interview by Hilli Levin

Richard Siken has received high praise from fellow poets such as Louise Glück, as well as critics at the New York Times, and has won numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize and the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. It has been 10 years since the publication of his first collection, and his sophomore collection, War of the Foxes, is beautifully wrought and well worth the wait. We asked Siken a few questions about his writing process, the focus of his new collection, the role of poetry and more. 

This is your first collection since 2005’s Crush. How has your writing process changed since then?
My process hasn’t changed, but my concerns are different. Crush was focused on romantic love. After Crush was published, it occurred to me that I might never love again—an awful thought, but it was possible—and if I didn’t love again, would I have anything left to say about myself or the world? It turns out, I did. Instead of asking, “Why won’t he love me back?” I started saying, “Don’t kill my friends.”

This collection includes many poems that center on painting or utilize painterly language. How has your painting influenced your writing?
It hasn’t. In War of the Foxes, I wanted to show the difficulties of representation. A bird and a painting of a bird are different, just as an event and the story of an event are different. It’s not that painting influenced my writing, it’s that it became the subject matter of my writing.

Crush has come to be revered as a kind of cult classic among readers. How has its success shaped the way you approach your work?
I’m reminded that I’ve made something and I’m “responsible” for it in some way. I was surprised that so many people wanted to know if it was “true”—whatever that means—instead of letting it evoke emotion. If anything, this insistence on wanting to know the truth compelled me to start writing about the lie of representation and how singing shouldn’t be held accountable to the rules of journalism.

In past interviews, you’ve expressed concern and frustration over “the frequency in which explanation is demanded from art.” In our modern, information-fueled world, why is it important for art and poetry to remain nebulous in meaning?
Oh no! I never meant that at all. Nebulous is an awful word. Poetry and visual art are full of meaning, often very clear, focused and deliberate meaning. What frustrates me is that people want to know—and bluntly ask—what my childhood was like, what medications I might be taking, and if maybe there is something fundamentally wrong with me that makes me unlovable. They think they need this backstory, this explanation, if they are going to approach my poems or consider them valid.

You can stop a song every few beats to analyze its structure—which can be useful for understanding it in one way—but you can also listen to the song all the way through and have the experience. It sounds obvious when I apply this idea to a song, but it seems that dissection the default approach for poetry and visual art. It’s an autopsy, which is fine, except it offers very little, and it does so at the expense of all the living parts.

Are there certain poets or collections that you find yourself continually coming back to, for solace or inspiration?
Gertrude Stein and Lyn Hejinian. Deep lyric and pure play. Astounding.

Where do you do most of your writing?
I have a nice desk. It used to be someone’s dining room table.

What is the best piece of writing advice you have received?
Read what you hate. It’s easy to read what you love, it’s easy to get discouraged when you compare yourself to your all-time favorites, but when you read what you hate, you can feel your aesthetic starting to bristle, you can see, again, the necessity of your work.

Aside from poetry, filmmaking, painting and photography, are there any other artistic mediums you would like to explore in the future?
I am building chairs. And I am trying to figure out how to design a bigger desk.

What do you believe is the role of poetry today?
The role has never changed. Poetry is an example of how to be human. And I believe poetry is the language of the imagination. And we need larger imaginations. Figurative language reframes problems and offers previously unseen solutions. It challenges as well as delights. Poetry should be everyone’s second language.

What advice would you offer to those who may feel intimidated by poetry, but would like to start reading it?
Poets use the materials of conversation for not-conversation—for singing and playing around, and storytelling—and this makes people angry and confused. I think poetry has too often been presented as a puzzle that needs to be solved to get to a deeper meaning. There can be deep meaning and surface meaning and sideways meaning, beautiful lying and sudden honesty, risk and tension and complicating frictions, and, quite frankly, joy inside a poem. It isn’t supposed to be intimidating, it’s supposed to be electrifying. If a poem makes you feel stupid, it’s probably a bad poem.

 

Author photo courtesy of Copper Canyon Press.

Richard Siken has received high praise from fellow poets such as Louise Glück, as well as critics at the New York Times, and has won numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize and the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. It has been 10 years since the publication of his first collection, and his second collection, War of the Foxes, is beautifully wrought and well worth the wait. We asked Siken a few questions about his writing process, the focus of his new collection, the role of poetry and more.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Lucy Monroe

Interview by Hilli Levin

When Kitty Grant returns to her hometown of Cailkirn, Alaska, after a painful divorce, Tack MacKinnon isn't exactly the first person she wants to see. But there's no way to avoid him for long, and soon they find themselves in a friends-with-benefits situation. True feelings start to surface, but can they overcome their fears and painful pasts in order to make it as a couple? 

We caught up with Lucy Monroe and chatted about Alaska's natural beauty, the importance of imperfect characters and more in a 7 questions interview.

Describe your book in one sentence.
Wild Heat is a wild emotional ride about best friends who prove that second chances aren’t just worth taking, they’re worth fighting for and steamy sex isn’t just about two bodies coming together but two hearts colliding.

What inspired you to set your new Northern Fire series in a small Alaskan town?
I went to Alaska and I fell in love: with the small towns we visited, the often quirky people we met, the landscape, the whole experience. Stories started rolling through my head like movies from the first step onto Alaskan soil and they didn’t stop once I got home. Creating a series to tell those stories seemed like a natural step to take. Finding a publisher and the time to write the stories . . . now that was something else entirely.

Have you ever traveled to Alaska?
Yes. And I’m eager to go back. Our next trip will be longer and will probably be limited to the Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage, but life is fluid, so I’m so not writing that in stone.

What do you love most about Kitty Grant and Tack MacKinnon?
They love each other in a way few people do and when you add the way they are in love with each other on top of that, they have such a special bond. And still they manage to screw it up. That gives us hope. Because, come on, if they can screw something so amazing up and then turn around and somehow fix it—even after all the pain, the rest of us have a chance to make life work too. I love that Tack is such a protector and Kitty is too. In their own ways, they care so very deeply about their families and the people that they love. It’s admitting they love each other that’s hard. And honestly, I find that that endearing. I like imperfect people because I am one.

What does your ideal date night look like?
My ideal date night starts with the ideal partner and that’s my husband. He’s amazing. [Happy sigh.] A gorgeous, romantic guy who is not perfect, but is absolutely the guy for me. The “ideal” date would be a warm evening. We’d start with dinner at an outdoor café—not too crowded, the food is good, the service friendly but not unctuous—and it’s followed by some form of live entertainment (a play in the park, music at the Schnitz, a ballet); we stop for dessert and decaf espressos at The Heathman’s Library bar and go home to make love. In fact, I think that sounds like a night that needs to happen sometime very soon.

Out of all the characters in your novels, who is your favorite character to write?
The easy answer would be one of the characters I’m working on right now, but would that be the truth? Honestly, I think my favorite character to ever write might well have been Kitty from Wild Heat because in so many ways, she reminds me of my baby sister and I adore her. But then so does Jillian from The Real Deal (for very different reasons), so honestly, I don’t know. Every character crawls inside my heart and digs their own little home there. Some make me laugh, some make me cry and some make me so mad I want to spank them.

What would you like to ask the next “7 Questions” Romance participant?
If you could go back and change something about one of your already published books, would you and what would it be?

We caught up with Lucy Monroe and chatted about Alaska's natural beauty, the importance of imperfect characters and more in a 7 questions interview.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Jewell Parker Rhodes

Interview by Hilli Levin

Coretta Scott King Honor-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes (Sugar) returns to the Louisiana bayou in her enchanting new middle grade novel, Bayou Magic. Ten-year-old Maddy is the last of her sisters to leave their home in bustling New Orleans for a summer in the bayou with Grandmére. Soon, Maddy discovers the bayou's natural beauty, close-knit community and her family's magical legacy. When an oil leak threatens the community, Maddy must rely on her strength, her smarts and the help of a mysterious mermaid. We asked Rhodes a few questions about Bayou Magic and what she loves about writing children's literature.

Bayou Magic takes a very different approach to mermaid lore than the Disney tale so many of us are familiar with. What was the inspiration for this story?
I’ve long known about different mermaid lore. I was thrilled when both UCLA’s Fowler Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art featured an exhibit of Mami Wata, “Mother Water.” I think it’s amazing that African mermaids swam beside slave ships and remained in America to comfort the captured and to remind them of their homeland. Literature teaches culture. I want girls of color to know there are heroic mermaids that mirror them. I want all girls to know there are diverse, global mermaid tales that depart from the Western tale of a mermaid transforming herself to marry a human.

You were born in Pittsburgh, but Bayou Magic and many of your previous novels take place in Louisiana. What is it about the Deep South that moves you?
My grandmother raised me and she had deep Southern roots. She believed in holistic healing and she taught me to honor the past, my ancestors and nature. Grandmother died when I was 19 just as I was deciding to become a writer. Whenever I visit Louisiana, I feel her spirit—her good-heartedness and love. I’m also enthralled by the cultural stew—the delicious food, music and people. History feels alive in Louisiana; the atmosphere encourages dreams, magic and creativity.

What do you love most about Maddy?
Maddy was a surprise and delight for me. She’s far more quiet and watchful than any of my other heroines. And she has the biggest eyes that just glow with curiosity, intelligence and kindness. To save her family, friends and the bayou from the effects of an oil spill, she overcomes her fears and swims with Mami Wata, the most powerful mermaid of all. I also love that Maddy loves and listens to her grandmother’s tales. 

Why is magic and myth such an important part of children’s literature?
The world is already magical for children. Seeing the moon, a family of rabbits, currents in the water are spectacular for a child. However, I do think children are drawn to stories in which characters perform magic. Magic can help children overcome their limitations and, like Maddy, save the day. Combine the mythic hero’s journey with magic and young readers feel empowered.

What’s the best part of writing for a younger audience?
Hugs and more hugs! Visiting schools is such a life-affirming delight. But I didn’t expect cards, letters and drawings from students. It’s very precious when a child reaches out. I keep a box filled with cards and letters. I imagine when I’m very, very old they will never fail to lift my spirits.

What was your favorite book when you were Maddy’s age, and how has it influenced your own writing?
As a kid, I read everything. Little Women, Black Beauty and Nancy Drew were some of my favorites. I could only afford to buy Great Illustrated Classic comics. I’d gather pop bottles and redeem them for nickels. I loved The Prince and the Pauper and The Journey to the Center of the Earth. But the Prince Valiant comic strip meant a great deal to me. I decided that I wanted to grow up and “be valiant.” I think my characters, the strong boys and girls, are valiant—courageous and determined.

What do you hope your young readers learn from this book?
Nature needs to be cherished and the health of animals, humans and our planet need to be balanced with energy needs. Young people today will be the stewards of the future. I do believe legends of mermaids who valued waters and befriended humanity will add an emotional resonance to sustainability issues for children.

Are you working on any new projects?
I’m completing Towers Falling (publishing Summer 2016). It’s about Dèjà, a homeless girl, who discovers how her life has been impacted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I’m also doing research for two other historical novels. I don’t know if I’ll write one or both or none. As always my writing follows my heart. I’m open to voices, characters that appear like ghosts when I’m doing the dishes or dreaming.

Coretta Scott King Honor-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes returns to the Louisiana bayou in her magical new middle grade novel, Bayou Magic.
Mystery & SuspenseWorld FictionMystery

Alex Zucker

Interview by Hilli Levin

Czech writer Heda Margolius Kovály, best known for her memoir chronicling her time in Auschwitz (Under a Cruel Star), drew from her later harrowing experiences in 1950s Soviet Prague for her only work of fiction, Innocence. This espionage thriller follows the chilling and stifling atmosphere of political oppression during the post-WWII days of Communist Czechoslovakia. Friends and neighbors are suddenly not to be trusted as informants are hidden everywhere, and innocence begins to lose meaning to those in the government. Innocence is available in an English translation for the first time thanks to award-winning literary translator and co-chair of the PEN America Translation Committee, Alex Zucker. We asked Zucker a few questions about his translation process for Innnocence, the Czech language and more.

In past interviews, you have somewhat jokingly compared translators to dockworkers. Why do you think translators are so underappreciated in the literary world? 
I think there are three types of reasons for it: psychological, cultural and legal. 1.) Psychological because many translators are the kind of people who don’t like to call attention to themselves. Some don’t even mind when their name doesn’t appear on the covers of the books they translate. Maybe this has to do with the fact that the ability to subsume your own personality—or, more accurately, your personal preferences—to that of the writer you’re translating is a requirement for a translator to be skillful. Humility is far from the only requirement, but it is fundamental. 2.) Cultural because the idea of authorship is so primary to our understanding of literature. Every work of translated literature has (at least) two authors, and the relationship between them can be hard to wrap your head around. It’s easier just to ignore. As Stephen King told the New York Times, “I actually avoid novels in translation when I can, because I always have the feeling that the author is being filtered through another mind.” (And as a translator friend of mine quipped in response, “Lucky all the other books don't get edited, then!”) 3.) Legal because for a long time literary translation contracts were written as work-for-hire agreements, meaning that translators gave away ownership (copyright) of their work to the publisher. As a result, translators’ names were erased from literary history. This still goes on today, though we don’t have the data to know whether it’s happening more or less than it used to.

Did you ever have a chance to meet Heda Margolius Kovály before her death in 2010?
No. I’m sorry to say I did not. I did meet her son, though, and we corresponded throughout my work on the translation.

When did you start studying Czech, and what drew you to the language? 
I began studying Czech in 1988, following my first trip to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1987. After going there, I decided I wanted to work on human rights in Czechoslovakia, so my interest in the language was initially as a tool to that end. But then I went to get a degree in international affairs and studied Czech with Peter Kussi, one of Milan Kundera’s translators. I was already fluent in French, but had never thought to translate, so Peter gets the credit for inspiring me to go down that path.

What do you love most about Czech literature?
As I said, my initial interest was not in literature, but in human rights, although it was a Milan Kundera novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (in Michael Henry Heim’s translation), that introduced me to the political reality of Czechoslovakia in particular and Communist Eastern Europe in general. So from a reader’s perspective, what got my attention was the difference (for lack of a better word) from the mostly U.S. and West European writing that I had read up to then: more black humor, more overt politics, more foregrounding of history. From a translator’s perspective, now, nearly 30 years later, I still appreciate those features of Czech literature, but what I enjoy about translating is more the experience of working with language. The decoding and recoding. And I love the end result of having a book I can touch and hold and share with other people—that matters a lot to me.

How long did you spend on this translation project?
Depends how you count, since I’m always working on multiple projects simultaneously. But, roughly, three months translating and another two months or so editing.

Do you read many mysteries in your off time? 
No, none at all.

Was there a section or scene in the novel that was particularly difficult to translate?
Dialogue is always tricky. Readers (and critics) are more willing to suspend their disbelief that a character is Czech yet by some work of magic is “speaking” (or thinking) in English when reading a narrator’s voice. As soon as you put quotation marks around a character’s words, it sets off an alarm, raises a flag. “Wait. Is that how a Czech person in 1950s Prague would say that? In . . . Czech? English? Wait. How are they supposed to sound?” Suddenly the spell is broken, and readers can no longer ignore the fact that they’re reading a translation. They bridle. I think it’s a natural reaction, but it’s just that: a reaction, as opposed to a response involving thought about what options the translator has. If you as a translator ignore the fact that characters are speaking in colloquial language and using slang vocabulary, and portray them as using neutral language, you’re taking away part of what defines them. On the other hand, how far can you push it and still be convincing? I suppose it’s analogous to U.S. actors speaking with a German accent when they play Nazi Germans in Hollywood films about World War II. It would seem strange, wouldn’t it, if they sounded too “American”?

Is there a particular translator whose work you admire and are inspired by? 
I already mentioned Peter Kussi. Paul Wilson was also instrumental in my formation as a translator. He was the first experienced translator to edit my work, and for decades now has served as an informal mentor to me. His 1989 translation of Bohumil Hrabal’s I Served the King of England was also the first translation I ever read side by side with the original, an invaluable learning experience that I would recommend to every translator. We probably all do it at some point.

Are you interested in writing a novel of your own some day?
I’ve had ideas for novels—like lots of people I know—but never any real drive to sit down and write one.

What projects are you working on next?
Next year my translation of Tomáš Zmeškal’s first novel, Love Letter in Cuneiform, is coming out with Yale University Press. At the end of June I’ll be turning in a novella from the mid-1950s, Midway Upon the Journey of Our Life, by Josef Jedlička, for Charles University Press. Incredibly, there has been only one Czech work from the ’50s published in English before (Josef Škvorecký’s The Cowards, translated by Jeanne Němcová), so that’s an exciting one. Then I have a novel by Magdaléna Platzová, The Anarchist, for Bellevue Literary Press, due at the end of August, and I’m hoping soon to sign a contract to publish Angel Station, the only work of Jáchym Topol’s that has yet to appear in English. Also, by the end of the year, I’ll be finishing Arnošt Lustig’s novel Colette, a job I’ve been hired to do by the author’s daughter, so there’s no publisher for it yet.

 

Czech writer Heda Margolius Kovály, best known for her memoir chronicling her time in Auschwitz (Under a Cruel Star), drew from her later harrowing experiences in 1950s Soviet Prague for her only work of fiction, Innocence. This espionage thriller follows the chilling and stifling atmosphere of political oppression during the post-WWII days of Communist Czechoslovakia. Neighbor and friends are suddenly not to be trusted, as govenrment informants are hidden everywhere, and innocence begins to lose meaning to those in the government. Innocence is available in an English translation for the first time due to award-winning literary translator and co-chair of the PEN America Translation Committee, Alex Zucker. We asked Zucker a few questions about his translation process for Innnocence, the Czech language and more.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Robert Beatty

Interview by Hilli Levin

Robert Beatty's middle grade debut, Serafina and the Black Cloak, is a unique blend of supernatural mystery, Southern historical and rich fantasy. Readers are sure to love this brave, brash and rather unusual heroine whose true identity may prove to be a puzzle of its own.

When a terrifying cloaked man starts abducting the children in the grand Biltmore Estate that Serafina (secretly!) calls home, she must defy her stubborn father's orders to lay low and band together with some unlikely new friends to find the missing victims and put an end to this otherworldly threat once and for all.

We asked Beatty a few questions about the history of Asheville, North Carolina, fine-tuning the spookiness of a story and more.

What inspired you to set the book in your own hometown of Asheville, on the grounds of the grand Biltmore Estate?
I love the history and beauty of Biltmore Estate. I enjoy exploring its rooms and corridors. Whenever I’m there, I envision all the stories—both realistic and imaginative—that could take place there. I think people really yearn for stories about places they love, and I’m definitely not alone in loving Biltmore.

This story is set in 1899—can you tell us about the historical research you did in preparation for your writing?
My concept was to create a spooky, mystery-thriller in a historically accurate setting, to mix an engaging fantasy within a historical texture. I researched the house and the time period extensively, both in person and in books. I’ve read every book on Biltmore and the Vanderbilt family that I could find. My goal was to make the setting and historical details of Serafina and the Black Cloak true to life, and I asked the museum curators at Biltmore to double-check the manuscript for me.

Although there is plenty of humor and adventure in the book, there are also some very dark and scary elements. What made you want to write a Gothic novel for a middle grade audience?
When I set out to write Serafina and the Black Cloak, my goal was to write a story that would engage my daughters and keep them on the edge of their seats. I wanted to write a story about a very unusual, but heroic girl who must face not only many dangers, but the mystery of her own developing identity. My wife and daughters helped me refine the story and the character. Among other things, I drew upon my daughters to help me fine-tune the level of spookiness to their liking.

Why did you decide to leave your career in the tech industry in order to pursue writing full time?
I’ve been passionate about writing all my life, but it had always taken a back seat to my entrepreneurial career. As the founder and CEO of an Internet software company, I was working ninety-hour weeks and totally loved it. But when my wife was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the age of 31, it hit me hard. I decided to change my life, focus on my family, and pursue a new dream—one that was more conducive to a life at home. So I sold my company and started writing full time. My wife went through treatment and is now in remission. Our third daughter, and to some extent Serafina and the Black Cloak, are the rewards of our continued life together.

Has having three daughters influenced your writing in any way?
I literally write with and for my daughters. At dinner each night we brainstorm ideas, develop stories, and work out the details of the plot and character. When my daughters get home from school each afternoon, I better have the next chapter done or they get mad at me! They listen to and provide feedback on every version of every page I write, guiding me toward the story they want to hear. This has been a family project with my wife and daughters from the beginning, and continues to be that way today. For example, my wife and daughters have been deeply involved in the making of the book trailer for Serafina. They helped develop the script and fine-tune the editing. My wife made the beautiful dresses that we used in the trailer, my 15-year-old daughter trained the dog, and my 12-year-old daughter played the role of Serafina.

Serafina is not your average heroine—what do you love most about her?
I love how in many ways she is a strange creature of the night, with unusual and even somewhat unsettling characteristics, but in many other ways, she’s innocent, frightened and finding her way. I also love that she has a real fierceness to her, but a good heart.

What was your favorite book when you were Serafina’s age, and how has it influenced your writing?
I started writing novels when I was Serafina’s age, which I think is another reason that I love writing about that age. Over the years, I’ve fallen in love with the writing of Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, and Charles Dickens, but when I was a kid, I loved medieval fantasy novels like T.H. White’s The Book of Merlin and The Once and Future King. Despite the dark forces that my characters must face along the way, I’ve always been a romantic at heart. I love a traditional hero’s journey. Or better yet, a heroine’s journey.

Do you have any future writing projects planned?
Yes. I’ve begun the sequel for Serafina and the Black Cloak.I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Disney Hyperion will want to publish it and that there will be a few people out there who will want to read it. But in the meantime, I know there are three particular little girls who are demanding it. 

Robert Beatty's middle grade debut, Serafina and the Black Cloak, is a unique blend of supernatural mystery, Southern historical and rich fantasy. Readers are sure to love this brave, brash and rather unusual heroine whose true identity may prove to be a puzzle of its own.

FictionDebut Fiction

Naomi Jackson

Interview by Hilli Levin

Naomi Jackson's The Star Side of Bird Hill is a lush and lyrical debut set in Barbados during the summer of 1989. Ten-year-old Phaedra and her 16-year-old sister, Dionne, are sent away from their home in Brooklyn to spend some time with their maternal grandmother, Hyacinth, in the Caribbean, but neither girl is quite prepared for what the summer holds in store. Jackson centers her tale around four women in the same family from four different generations and acutely sifts through the emotional landscapes of coming-of-age, claiming a cultural identity, grief and mental illness while including plenty of moments of brash humor and poetic insight.

We asked Jackson a few questions about her own ties to Barbados, her writing process, what she's working on next and more.

What was the initial inspiration for this novel?
I started this novel with just the opening scene of the novel, which features two sisters, Phaedra and Dionne, playing with their friends in a church cemetery in Barbados. I wrote The Star Side of Bird Hill to explore the lives and experiences of Caribbean people both at home and in the diaspora. Writing the book was also a way to answer a question that dogged me—what would happen if, like my parents sometimes joked, they sent me home to the Caribbean for the summer, and left me there for good.

I love the cover! Did you select the artwork?
I love the cover too! I met the cover artist, Sheena Rose, when I was in Barbados writing and researching my novel. A friend gifted me one of Sheena Rose’s paintings, “Too Much Makeup,” when I graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and it hung above my desk as I finished the book. I was so glad that my publisher was open to and excited about my idea of featuring the painting on the book cover. I wrote about the cover story for Lit Hub.

Much like Dionne and Phaedra, you grew up in Brooklyn with West Indian parents. Have you spent much time in the Caribbean as a child, and did you travel to Barbados during your writing process?
I grew up in a predominantly West Indian neighborhood in Brooklyn, and I spent many childhood summers in Barbados (where my mother’s from) and in Antigua (where my father’s from) with my sister and a gang of cousins. I spent the summer of 2012 in Barbados researching and writing this novel. I found spending an extended period of time in Barbados to be really helpful. I felt that there was no substitute for listening to people talk and seeing the landscape with a writer’s eye and curiosity.  

Did your characters surprise you at any point during your writing process?
When I began this novel, I was telling the story from the perspective of the younger sister, Phaedra. I broke a number of rules in fiction by eventually choosing a roaming point of view that jumps between Phaedra, her sister Dionne, and their grandmother Hyacinth. I was surprised by the ways in which choosing multiple perspectives enriched the novel, and I was taken aback by how much the other characters had to say.

Depression and mental illness have large roles in this novel. Why was it important for you to openly and honestly explore this topic?
I wanted to write a book that honestly tackled mental health in black communities head on, like Bebe Moore Campbell’s 72 Hour Hold. I was inspired by Campbell’s book and related advocacy for mental health issues. I felt that writing honestly about this issue was an important way to lift the veil on a conversation about mental health that is often hushed and avoided altogether in Caribbean communities. I felt I was uniquely equipped to change hearts and minds by telling a nuanced, complex story about mental illness and how it affects Caribbean families.

As a graduate of many prestigious writing programs, what’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received so far?
Writers write.

Aside from writing, do you have any other creative outlets and pursuits?
I enjoy the other creative arts—the visual arts, music, dance and theatre. I also love watching films; ideally, I get to see a few films each week.

Who are some of the authors that you turn to for inspiration?
Shay Youngblood, Marlon James, Tiphanie Yanique, Jamaica Kincaid, Sherman Alexie.

What are you working on next?
I am working on my second novel, a multigenerational family saga set in Brooklyn and the Caribbean from the 1930s to the 2000s. I am also writing a screenplay adaptation of my short story, “Ladies,” with Barbadian filmmaker Lisa Harewood.

 

Author photo by Lola Flash

Naomi Jackson's The Star Side of Bird Hill is a lush and lyrical debut set in Barbados during the summer of 1989. Ten-year-old Phaedra and her 16-year-old sister Dionne are sent away from their home in Brooklyn to spend some time with their maternal grandmother, Hyacinth, in the Caribbean, but neither girl is quite prepared for what the summer holds in store. Jackson centers her tale around four women in the same family, but from four different generations, and acutely sifts through the emotional landscapes of coming-of-age, claiming a cultural identity, grief and mental illness while including plenty of moments of brash humor and poetic insight. We asked Jackson a few questions about her own ties to Barbados, her writing process, what she's working on next and more.
FictionShort Stories

Audrey Niffenegger

Interview by Hilli Levin

'Tis the season for spooky reads! As the days in October get a little colder and the nights get a little longer, it's the perfect time to curl up with best-selling author Audrey Niffenegger's new and lovingly curated collection of ghost stories, Ghostly. Featuring Niffenegger's original illustrations and a few of her own stories alongside classics (Poe's "The Black Cat")  and newer works by Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link, readers are sure to find something that moves and quietly haunts them in this book. 

We asked Niffenegger a few questions about her creative process for Ghostly, her favorite scary story, her next project and more.

Which story in this collection scares you the most?
None of them scare me. Some of them make me sad, some of them are extremely beautiful, all of them are surprising and strange. None of them make me want to go to bed with the lights on. This isn’t a book of horror stories.

Can you tell us a bit about your artistic process for the illustrations in Ghostly?
Read the story a few times, wander away to answer email, drink some coffee, read the story again, forget about it for a couple of weeks while attending to more urgent deadlines. Have an idea about the image while washing dishes. Make a sketch, realize that I need a picture reference. Get lost in Google Images for a while. Draw the image. Give the drawing to Ken Gerleve, my assistant, who does helpful things to it on the computer. Send resulting scans to Suzanne Dean who incorporates the image into the design of the book.

The book design (cover art, typography, illustrations) was a collaboration between Suzanne Dean and me. Before any illustrations were made, we discussed ideas for the design and once the stories were chosen we sent designs and images back and forth. Suzanne is wonderful to work with, it was a pleasure to see my images transformed into the book.

Do you think what scares us has changed over time?
Probably not. I’m sure most of it is hard wired into our brains: fear of death, fire, heights, snakes, public speaking, etc. The trick is to find things that are not all that scary, mix them with the horrible things and refine it all into a good story that is haunting.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Nope.

Have you ever been inside a haunted house?
Sorry, no.

Was there a piece of fiction you wanted to include in Ghostly, but couldn’t quite fit?
Beloved, by Toni Morrison.

What are the most fun and the most challenging parts of writing a spooky piece of fiction like “Secret Life, with Cats” or your previous novel, Her Fearful Symmetry?
I am not especially interested in frightening people. I’m more attracted to loss, guilt, grief, longing and solitude. So both “Secret Life, With Cats” and Her Fearful Symmetry are about lonely people trying to regain what they have lost or, failing that, trying to move on. The fun bits involve thinking up special effects. The hard part is making the things that are important to the characters become important to the readers.

What is your favorite scary story?
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James.

Do you have a favorite Halloween tradition?
When I taught etching I used to read “The Mezzotint” by M.R. James to my students on Halloween.

Why do you think ghost stories, specifically many of these domestically-focused stories in Ghostly, are so enduring and popular?
There’s something wonderful about the intersection of the ordinary and the impossible. These stories are like rollercoasters, controlled thrills. We love to be scared, but not too much.

What are you working on next?
I’m working on a sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife. It’s called The Other Husband. It is about Alba DeTamble as a grownup.

'Tis the season for spooky reads! As the days in October get a little colder and the nights get a little longer, it's the perfect time to curl up with best-selling author Audrey Niffenegger's new and lovingly curated collection of ghost stories, Ghostly. Featuring Niffenegger's original illustrations and a few of her own stories alongside classics (Poe's "The Black Cat") and newer works by Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link, readers are sure to find something that moves and quietly haunts them in this book.
Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Laura Resau

Interview by Hilli Levin

Laura Resau takes readers to the dusty, rolling hills of Oaxaca, Mexico, with her new middle grade novel, The Lightning Queen. This magical tale begins when Mateo leaves his home in Maryland to visit his grandfather in Southern Mexico for the summer. Slightly bored by his rural surroundings and the lack of an Xbox, Mateo is surprised when his grandfather asks for his help. As his grandfather tells him the story of his childhood in the 1950s, a charming and lively tale of a friendship that defies the impossible unfolds.

We asked Resau a few questions about her time in Mexico, the intriguing history of the "Gypsy" Romani people, the importance of enchanted moments and more. 

What inspired this book?
One day, when I was doing cultural anthropology fieldwork in Oaxaca, Mexico, I met a 96-year-old healer who told me enchanting stories about her encounters with the Gypsies, or Romani people. She recounted how, decades earlier, they came in caravans to show outdoor movies and tell fortunes. In her remote Mixteco village without plumbing or electricity, the arrival of the Romani was wildly exciting. After hearing her tales, I felt inspired to learn more about the Romani culture in Mexico and found myself fascinated. I became especially interested in the mutually appreciative relationship between these two marginalized cultures—the Mixteco and the Romani. In The Lightning Queen, I wove this research together with oral histories from my Oaxacan friends and my own experiences in Mixteco villages.

You spent two years living in Oaxaca, Mexico, where The Lightning Queen is set. What is it about the region that moves you?
I’m passionate about indigenous rights issues. More than half of Oaxaca’s population is indigenous, and there are more than a dozen native groups within the state. I first was welcomed into these communities as a teacher since I had a number of indigenous students at the rural college where I taught, and they would invite me to spend weekends and vacations with their families. They were kind and patient with me, helping me grow fluent in Spanish and learn the basics of the Mixteco language. I had the unique opportunity to participate in everyday activities like making tortillas as well as special rituals like healing ceremonies. I especially loved cooking and eating the local, homemade specialties, many of which have pre-Hispanic roots—mole, hot chocolate, atole, tamales, pozole. And the arts are a beautiful part of daily life—weaving palm and textiles, shaping pottery, carving dried gourds, painting little wooden animal sculptures, making dyed sawdust mosaics. I found Oaxaca to be a feast for the senses and spirit.

While Teo is a native Oaxacan, Esma, Queen of Lightning, is actually a Gypsy—a member of the Romani. I was surprised to learn that the Romani traveled so far from Eastern Europe so many decades ago! Can you tell us about the history of the Romani in Mexico?
Over the past several centuries, groups of Romani have migrated to the Americas, often to escape persecution in Europe. The greatest waves of Rom came between the late 1800s and mid-1900s. Some groups first settled in the U.S. or South America and then migrated to Mexico. The Romani do not appear in much of the written history of Mexico since they have been so marginalized. El cine ambulante—the traveling cinema—was popular work for the Romani in the mid-1900s, but after the spread of VCR’s in the 1980s, many Romani have found alternate work, like machine repair; buying and selling vehicles; and performing theater, magic and clowning.

"I’ve observed that children are often more receptive to this natural integration of magic into reality, and don’t feel the need to make a distinction between the two."

There is a strong tradition of magical realism in Mexican literature, and this is woven throughout The Lightning Queen as well. Why is magical realism important, especially in children’s literature?
As an anthropologist and writer, I try to avoid imposing my own cultural categories on the experiences of people in other cultures. Many of my friends in rural Oaxaca, especially my older friends, do not categorize their experiences as being either “magical” or “real-life.” There’s more of an open fluidity in how they describe their experiences, some of which, according to my culture’s category, might be labeled “mythical” or “magical.” I love the genre of magical realism because it respects this fluidity of human experience. 

When I was a child, I remember feeling that magic was possible and that it infused my own world. I’ve observed that children are often more receptive to this natural integration of magic into reality, and don’t feel the need to make a distinction between the two. Magical realism in children’s literature lets readers embrace this world view, and encourages them to empathize with and respect cultures and people who accept magic and reality as part of a whole package.

Oaxaca is just one of the many places you’ve traveled in recent years; what location is currently at the top of your travel wish list?
I’ve never been to Southeast Asia—I’d love to go to Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. My aunt is from Thailand and lives there now, so it’s always been on my radar, but recently I find myself dreaming of the tropical landscape, delicious food, vibrant textiles, stunning architecture and other intriguing aspects of these cultures. 

Which writer do you turn to for inspiration?
Honestly, these days, the most inspiring writers in my life are the two talented and hard-working women in my writers’ group—Laura Pritchett and Bailey Cates (who has too many pen names to keep track of!). Although they both write for adult audiences, we complement each other well. Laura is always reminding me to dig deep to find the heart of a story, to search for tenderness and not shy away from the gritty and raw. She encourages me to embrace the earthy and the spiritual at once. 

And the incredibly prolific Bailey is always reflecting on her creative process, asking herself what’s working and what isn’t, tweaking her routine here or there to make the writing flow more smoothly and feel more joyful. She makes me reflect more, in a pragmatic way, on my own writing habits. And we all give each other heaps of empathy and encouragement through the ups and downs of our writing journeys.

What do you love most about writing for a young audience?
The books that affected me most profoundly were the ones I read as a child and teen. At that time, my worldview was open and flexible enough that these stories planted seeds in me and expanded my understanding of existence. I think that as adults, we tend to be more rigid in our perspectives, and it takes more to tap into our deep empathy. I love getting emails and letters from young people who tell me that my books have changed how they see themselves or the world (in a good way!). It’s an honor to see this coming full circle in my life. 

I’ve also noticed that kids are much better than adults at laughing hysterically—with utter abandon—at the funny parts of my books. I love it when kids tell me that something in my story made them roll around giggling on the floor. It’s very satisfying, and not a reaction you’d find in adult readers.

What do you hope your young readers take away from this story?
I’d love it if they develop a fascination with other cultures and languages. I hope the story helps them care more deeply about human rights issues like discrimination and racism faced by marginalized cultures around the world. But I also hope they feel uplifted and enchanted by the fun and magical elements. It would make me happy to see readers take to heart Esma’s advice: “Give yourself a fortune and make it come true.” And I’d be thrilled if the story inspired them to strengthen their own friendships, to help each other see their talents and follow their dreams.

What are you working on next?
I’m in the midst of writing another middle grade novel, also with a Latin American setting and bits of magic sprinkled throughout. Research for this book has involved a trip to the remote Ecuadorian Amazon rain forest, and multiple trips to my local chocolate shop. I’m giving myself this fortune: that there are more rain forest and chocolate shop trips in my near future . . . 

 

Author photo © Harper Point Photography

Laura Resau takes readers to the dusty, rolling hills of Oaxaca, Mexico, with her new middle grade novel, The Lightning Queen. This magical tale begins when Mateo leaves his home in Maryland to visit his grandfather in Southern Mexico for the summer. Slightly bored by his rural surroundings and the lack of an Xbox, Mateo is surprised when his grandfather asks for his help. As his grandfather tells him the story of his childhood in the 1950s, a charming and lively tale of a friendship that defies the impossible unfolds.

Poetry

Campbell McGrath

Interview by Hilli Levin

MacArthur fellow Campbell McGrath channels the voices of well-known luminaries, artists and political figures of the 20th century in his new collection, XX. Written over the course of 10 years, this ambitious collection asks questions about the impact of art while rejoicing in the century's discoveries and the velocity of worldwide change.

We asked McGrath a few questions about taking on Pablo Picasso's voice, the many ways of chronicling history, how he's celebrating National Poetry Month and more.

What was your initial inspiration for creating this unique series of poems?
About a decade ago I wrote a book-length historical poem, Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which was published in 2009. That book tells the story of George Shannon, one of the men on that epic journey, who got lost and wandered alone in Nebraska for sixteen days. That project was so interesting and enjoyable that it set me thinking about historical narratives, and I wondered if I could tell a story not just in one character’s voice, but in a host of voices—“a chorus of ghosts,” to quote XX. For some reason the entirety of the 20th century is the “story” that came to mind, and so I decided to give it a try.

How long did it take you to complete this project, and what surprised you the most over the course of your writing?
The very first poems in the book were written nearly 10 years ago—the first two were published in 2009, one in the Yale Review, the other in the Harvard Review. I’m not sure if I really believed that I would cover the whole century back then. The last three or four years I’ve been writing XX intensively, filling in holes, polishing up poems, and making sure the various threads came together as a fabric, a tapestry. Many things surprised me during this process. Particularly that some people I had wanted and expected to write about just refused to cooperate, while others—like Picasso—showed up in my head and demanded to speak.

Did you feel any trepidation in taking on the voices of such iconic personas as Picasso or Elvis? If so, how did you navigate that?
Picasso, as I’ve said, insisted on playing an important role in the century, and likewise in my book. So I felt no concern there. His ego would be satisfied. I had always intended to write an Elvis poem, since I’ve been fascinated by Elvis for years, have visited Graceland, and have in fact mentioned him in at least half a dozen other poems I’ve written. But I actually finished XX without writing about him at all. But then, reading through the book, I felt his absence—and ended up writing the longest poem in the book about him. And it’s one of my favorites. 

Was there any historical or cultural figure of the 20th century that you wanted to dedicate a poem to or embody, but couldn’t quite work in?
A lot of figures I had wanted to write about, but could not quite capture, are included in the catalogue-like “Clock” poems that show up periodically, and act almost as news-reels. Einstein, James Joyce, Walter Benjamin, Miles Davis. Some subjects or people I just didn’t feel entitled to speak for—like Martin Luther King, Jr. Others, like Richard Nixon, never came into focus.

Some may argue that poetry was much more culturally pervasive in the 20th century then it is today—how do you see the role of poets and poetry evolving in the 21st century?
Poetry is a subterranean current running below the surface throughout XX—many famous poets make an appearance, of course, but nearly everyone in the book has some relationship to poetry. Picasso and Mao both wrote and published poetry, Jane Goodall’s childhood ambition was to be Poet Laureate of England. Advertisers and propagandists stole their techniques from poetry’s old toolbox—rock and roll stole a different set of our tools. Poetry, which is a marginalized art in this country, is central to many cultures around the world. If you go to Ireland or Nicaragua, Egypt or Vietnam, you will find that poetry is valued and poets are honored for their work. Poetry is ancient—it predates written language. I have no doubt it will still be around long after many of our contemporary artforms have been entirely forgotten.

Obviously, time and the role of history is an overarching theme in XX. How do you view the relationship between history and poetry?
Poetry was the original form in which people recounted their most important histories—their epics and legends, from Gilgamesh to The Iliad to Beowulf. XX is not exactly that kind of project, but I drew inspiration from that deep connection. History can be told any number of ways—from a Ken Burns TV documentary to a hip hop opera, as Lin-Manuel Miranda has proven with Hamilton. If I weren’t a poet I would want to be a historian. In XX I get to be both.

In our hyper-connected and instantly gratified world today, has our cultural perception of time and history become hindered in any way?
Americans have always been forward-looking, which can be a great strength—but it is also an excuse for our lack of historical self-awareness. It is quite a paradox that the Internet is the greatest historical tool ever invented—all the information at your fingertips—and yet the methodology of our modern technologies is all about speed and motion and the fragmentation of our multi-tasking minds. Nobody wants to read carefully, think deeply, reflect thoughtfully. Why should they, if it is not rewarded in the culture?

How do you celebrate National Poetry Month?
With XX just coming out, I’ll be giving readings for the book, not only in Miami but in Los Angeles, Berkeley and Chicago. But it’s always a very busy month for me, especially nowadays, as we have a wonderful local poetry festival during the month of April. The festival is known as O, Miami, and there are events pretty much every day, and its goal is to get poetry out of the attic and into the actual lives of people in South Florida. As I’ve said, poetry is rarely seen or heard in American culture, so April is our month to gain a bit of attention and build the audience.

Do you have any new projects on the horizon?
Yes, always, several! I’m always working on various kinds of poems, and imagining my way toward new books. In terms of historical poetry projects, my next one will focus on the North Atlantic as a natural and a human environment. My grandparents emigrated from Ireland, so the story of transit across the Atlantic is not only our national foundation myth, but a personal one as well. If it follows the pattern of XX it will probably take me a decade to write it, but what’s the rush? History has all the time in the world.

MacArthur fellow Campbell McGrath channels the voices of well-known luminaries, artists and political figures of the 20th century in his new collection, XX. Written over the course of 10 years, this ambitious collection asks questions about the impact of art while rejoicing in the century's discoveries and the velocity of worldwide change. We asked McGrath a few questions about taking on Pablo Picasso's voice, the many ways of chronicling history, how he's celebrating National Poetry Month and more.
FictionLiterary Fiction

Dana Spiotta

Interview by Hilli Levin

Dana Spiotta explores the complexities of female friendship, the nature of seduction and the challenges of living as an artist in her dreamy and beautifully astute fourth novel, Innocents and Others. In the heady days of 1980s Los Angeles, childhood friends Meadow Mori and Carrie Wexler are both making strides as genre-defying filmmakers—of searing indie documentaries and mainstream women's comedies, respectively—while struggling to find the balance in their private lives. Meanwhile Amy, known on the phone as Nicole or Jelly, searches for belonging, intimacy and identity as an "unremarkable," aging woman who doesn't see her place in a city obsessed with the Hollywood ideal. When these three characters collide, pointed questions about the moral and social responsibilities of artists come bubbling to the surface.

We asked Spiotta a few questions about the irresistible magic of film, the constraints of the novel, pre-Internet "catfishing" and more. 

You write very compellingly about the language of film in this novel. What do you find most striking about film as a medium?
Film is gloriously overwhelming, especially when you are in a theater in the dark in front of a huge screen. What can you do but put away your ordinary life and submit? The combination of images, music and long looks at giant human faces gets right into our dream life. It is so seductive; I find it irresistible. And I like how the storytelling happens in the editing: the juxtapositions, the analogies it draws between things by intercutting. But the novel is better—much better—at getting our interior life, our consciousness. When we watch a film, it interacts with our own thoughts and feelings. A novel can describe that experience, that interaction of a mind with a film, the experience of watching.

Innocents and Others is mostly set in LA in the 1980s, well beyond Hollywood’s Golden Age, but very singular and celebrated in its own way. What drew you to this era?
I think it is because I grew up in the 1980s, and I feel very sure of the cultural markers of that era. You remember your own childhood and adolescence more than other times in your life. I remember those days very well—and it was not a time of quality entertainment. Maybe because Reagan was president, it had a kind of reactionary tiredness to it. Seventies overindulgence followed by 80s cynicism. In any case, I am attracted to writing about the recent past because I think it enables us to understand the present better. It is just far away enough to be both familiar to us and estranged from us. 

Jelly and Meadow share some of the allure and mystique of the classic film femme fatale, but they are both imbued with great power and humanity. What inspired you to shift this traditionally anti-feminist trope?
Interesting. Jelly is both a victim and a player of the idea of the seductive female. I think Meadow’s allure is more incidental. She has a lot of privilege, and she isn’t even aware of how others perceive her. I think all the women in the book push back at how value gets applied in a complicated and unfair way. At one point Meadow says to her best friend Carrie that “everything is so easy for you, an unbroken line.” Which could easily be said of Meadow. At another point, Jelly says to Meadow: “Some people—you for instance—are very lucky in this life.” By the end, Meadow does try to respond to that and to see herself more clearly.

Throughout the book, you touch on the power of the visual and oral traditions of storytelling and their abilities to seduce an audience. What did you discover about the intersections between these two modes and the written story during your writing process?
I love the constraints of the novel and how it uses language to create everything. The miracle of language (if it is precise and concrete) is that it can create in the mind all kinds of seductions, including sound and vision. I love how reading is interactive. My favorite novels leave room for the reader to put things together, to connect things. That is a deep level of engagement. And the novel is such a sustained and concentrated experience. At its best it is intimate and it resonates long after you finish the book. This book does make meaning in a cinematic way—connecting through the structure rather than using a lot of figurative language. I didn’t realize I was doing it in a self-conscious way. It just felt right as I was working. 

Your portrayal of the long friendship between Meadow and Carrie, two women with similar creative passions but on divergent paths, is refreshingly honest. In an era when films rarely pass the Bechdel Test, was it important for you to make this a centerpiece of your narrative?
At some point I was aware that the three main characters were all women, and although that happened organically, I admit that I was pleased on some level. Maybe one of the things I was interested in was that Meadow and Carrie do not have “careers” in men. Their lives are not built around romance. Meadow’s “love story” in the beginning turns out to be her love for cinema. But how much happiness does that bring her? She needs people, not just art. All the characters want to connect, and want to love. Jelly is kind of a slave to the allure of romance (for many complicated reasons). But there is purity there too. Is one better than the others? I don’t know. I think sacrifices (and joys) lie in all directions.

How did you stumble upon the history of “phone phreaking,” a form of pre-Internet hacking?
I had read an obituary of one of the phreaks, and I thought it was so fascinating. So it has been an interest of mine long before I wrote this book. I am, I think, attracted to people who do subversive things. And sure, they did it for free phone calls, but also they did it because they could. They did it for the sheer joy of transgressing on a huge corporate entity. And the joy of outsmarting the system.

Nicole, or Jelly, seems to be loosely based on Miranda Grosvenor, a real-life woman who cold-called Hollywood industry types in the 80s. What was it about her that sparked your imagination?
A few years ago there were a bunch of “catfishing” stories on the Internet (people pretending to be someone else).  It fascinated me because it was such a doomed pursuit. Eventually the person wants to meet you in real life and it will fall apart. I then remembered reading about Miranda and how she was a pre-internet version of that. She was apparently very seductive on the phone without actually being overtly sexual. So I wondered about that, what would that actually be like? Could I create someone who is convincingly seductive on the phone? And why would she do that? I became interested in the phone as a kind of outdated technology, so I turned her into a kind of phone fetishist. I made her partly blind and imagined her previous boyfriend as a phone hacker. But he loves the machine while she loves the thing the machine gives you: connection, a mysterious and very specific intimacy.

If Innocents and Others were adapted for film, who would be your ideal director?
I really like Nicole Holofcener and how her films deal with women and their friendships with other women. I loved Please Give.

Do you have any new projects on the horizon?
I do, but nothing I can talk about yet. (The embryonic novel has to be protected.)

Author photo by Jessica Marx.

Dana Spiotta explores the complexities of female friendship, the nature of seduction and the challenges of living as an artist in her dreamy and beautifully astute fourth novel, Innocents and Others. We asked Spiotta a few questions about the irresistible magic of film, the constraints of the novel, pre-Internet "catfishing" and more. 

FictionDebut Fiction

Lisa Owens

Interview by Hilli Levin

Lisa Owens' debut, Not Working, has been on so many "most anticipated" lists, we've just about lost count. Well, the wait for her highly inventive, hilarious and poignant novel about Millennial professional Claire and her desperate search for her ideal career (if such a thing even exists) is finally over. 

We caught up with Owens and asked her a few questions about the issues facing Millennials, her own quest for a dream job and more. 

What was your initial inspiration for Not Working?
The work theme was something I’d been thinking about for a while, not as a subject for a novel, necessarily, but a preoccupation I’d noticed in many of my peers who were beginning to question whether the jobs they’d fallen into (or gratefully snatched up) as graduates might not be the thing they wanted to do for the rest of their working lives. At the time I started writing, I  had no idea whether it was a substantial enough subject for a book (and I should say Not Working is about other things besides—families, long-term relationships, city living) but I did know I hadn’t read anything that dealt with this particular sense of feeling like you’ve ended up in the wrong place, and not knowing how to go about making it right.

Millennials often get a bad rap in think pieces. Was it important for you to humanize them and delve into their very real, everyday struggles in today’s world?
When I was writing the book, I honestly didn’t think of Claire as a Millennial, but as someone going through a particular (if contemporary) personal crisis. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that older readers as well as people my age have identified with Claire on different levels.

The "everyday" aspect was very important to me: I love fiction that deals with the texture of day-to-day life as it’s experienced and wanted to build a story around those micro moments that make up the weeks, months and years around the major life events—meals with your parents, nights in with your partner, going to the supermarket—which can, in their own small way, hold as much truth and import as the big, dramatic, macro events like births, deaths and marriage.

You left your own career in publishing after six years in order to pursue writing. How did you deal with the pressure to find your “dream job,” and what advice do you have for those in a similar situation?
Perhaps I’m imposing a narrative on my experience with hindsight, but I think if I’m really honest, I did always want to write, and working in publishing was an excellent displacement career while I worked up the courage to go for it (and pay the bills in the meantime). As career changes go, though, it might be as un-dramatic as it gets—unlike say, going from being a vet to cordon bleu chef.

To anyone in a similar situation, I would suggest trying to approach the dream job by degrees if possible—I did an evening course in creative writing before I left my job to do the full time M.A. and then made the decision to try & finish my novel. I needed to know I could actually hack the lifestyle and knuckle down to deadlines. The courses were instrumental in showing that I could do both.  

Much of the novel unfolds in a kind of stream-of-consciousness series of vignettes that further highlight the Millennial mentality and their fast-paced lives. Was this a conscious decision, or did this happen naturally during your writing process?
The very earliest seed for the book came from a document I’d been keeping for a while of fragments and observations: not fully fledged ideas, but scraps of dialogue and images. One day I looked at it and realized they all shared a tone so I began to expand them into vignettes and experiment with how to arrange them. The narrator, Claire, emerged pretty quickly, and her circumstances (jobless, aimlessly roaming the city) soon became clear when I asked myself: who would have the time to notice these incidental things? The vignette structure seemed to marry well with the work / purpose theme and the voice: that of someone who is lacking direction and focus but desperately seeking it.

Claire is a character that is easy to connect with when it comes to her big questions and concerns about career happiness and her everyday moments of reflection, but there are plenty of moments where her degree of privilege and outlook make for some painfully funny scenarios. How important is humor to your writing?
Humour in literature is often looked down on as being un-literary, but some of my favourite authors—Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, Mary Robison, George Saunders—write with great wit as well as humanity. When I realized Not Working had a comic tone, I decided to embrace it rather than shy away from it.  I’m a huge fan of comedy in general, so in a way it’s not surprising if some of that has seeped into my writing.  

Not Working was involved in a pretty high-profile publisher auction. What have been the most exciting and unexpected moments so far in your debut publishing experience?
The auction itself was the most surreal and incredible experience. Meeting publishers and hearing them talk about something I’d written as a viable book was really like a dream come true. The very first deal was weirdly a foreign one for Danish rights – I remember thinking at the time, well, if it doesn’t sell in English I’ll just relocate to Denmark. Talking to the editors (in the U.K., U.S. and Canada) who ended up buying the book was particularly special: they just got exactly what I was trying to do. It was so gratifying after 18 months shuttered away in the library to hear people responding with such passion to what at times felt like a totally insane pursuit.

Which authors do you look to for inspiration? Do elements of pop culture also inform your writing?
The authors I’ve mentioned above (Lorrie Moore, etc.) all cropped up at various times when I was writing – they each have such a singular and appealing style, and on the days when I was struggling I would reach for their books to help me find my way back to the basics of what I was trying to achieve. I also really like A.M. Homes and Ben Lerner. In terms of pop culture, definitely: "The Office" (U.K. version) and "Seinfeld" were both inspiring in the way that they deal with ennui and minutiae respectively. In terms of music, my anthem for the book was the song Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes which seemed to tap into some of the same questions Claire is facing: what is my place in the world, and why won’t someone tell me what it is? I used to listen to it on my way to the library to write. Lena Dunham and Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig also work with similar themes about contemporary living and purpose: I watched their work while I was writing and felt a real kinship in terms of their concerns.

What are you working on next?
Good question! I’ve recently had a baby so suddenly all the time I had to write & read & think has not-so-mysteriously disappeared . . . I know I want to write another novel, but if you come back to me in a year hopefully I’ll be able to answer this more effectively. In the meantime, lets say I’m working on being a good mother.

Lisa Owens' debut, Not Working, has been on so many "most anticipated" lists, we've just about lost count. Well, the wait for her highly inventive, hilarious and poignant novel about Millennial professional Claire and her desperate search for her ideal career (if such a thing even exists) is finally over. We caught up with Owens and asked her a few questions about the issues facing Millennials, her own quest for a dream job and more.
FictionLiterary Fiction

Ann Patchett

Interview by Hilli Levin

“How are you with dogs?” Ann Patchett asks as she holds back two curious greeters behind the front door. She ushers me inside her roomy red brick house to a comfortable living room drenched in morning sun. After she tries to convince me to adopt a deaf Border Collie from her sister (if only), her own rescue pup, Sparky, a tiny ball of black and white fur, makes himself comfortable on the couch between us.

Patchett is both a champion for and veteran of the literary world. She’s published six novels and three works of nonfiction, won numerous awards and owns Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in Nashville. For her, being active in both the artistic and commercial side of the publishing industry is important, and at this point in her career, inextricably intertwined.

This fall, in true rock star fashion, she’ll set off on a 30-city book tour. It’s difficult and draining. “An entire day could go by, and you don’t get the peanut butter sandwich you want because it’s just thing to thing to thing,” Patchett says. But she recognizes the importance of connecting with her readers, both as an author and as a bookseller. “I love going to the bookstores. These people are my friends.”

As long as the journey ahead may be, the road to her new novel, Commonwealth, has been a much longer one. In her previous novels, Patchett has bucked the traditional wisdom of “writing what you know,” opting instead to immerse herself in research. Recently, however, she experienced an aha moment that led to her latest novel.

“I read an essay by Jonathan Franzen where he said that it’s important for the novelist to always do the thing that scares him the most. For me, nothing was more terrifying than writing a novel that had to do with my family. I’ve always thought it’s so much braver and more honorable to just make everything up. But now that I’m in my 50s, I thought hey, I can do whatever I want,” she says.

Aside from checking off the box of crafting an autobiographical novel, Patchett was also aiming to further explore her own obsession with time. She explains that Bel Canto deals with the suspension of time, Run is a story that takes place in real time, but what she really wanted to do was challenge herself by writing a birth-to-death novel. “I didn’t make it. But [Commonwealth] is very much bookended by birth and death. Sometimes you just get as close as you can get. I felt like [with my previous novels] I had been sprinting for a long time, and I just thought: I need to stretch and open up.”

“Nothing was more terrifying than writing a novel that had to do with my family.”

Commonwealth focuses on 10 main characters from two very different families and follows them across 50 years. The story begins on a sweltering Southern California day at a christening party for blue-collar cop Fix and Beverly Keating’s second daughter, Franny. Amid the clamoring, cheek-pinching relatives, friends and coworkers, uninvited lawyer Bert Cousins and Beverly, emboldened by the party’s generous flow of gin, share a passionate, stolen kiss, setting off a chain of events that leads to the breakup and blending of their families, complete with six children.

The young stepsiblings spend verdant summers together in Virginia, forge alliances, run free of adult supervision and commit shocking misdeeds. (You’ll never look at Benadryl the same way again.) It’s kids versus the world, until a sudden death carves a deep divide between them.

Yet time marches on, and we are reunited with Franny as an unmoored 20-something working as an upscale cocktail waitress. When her literary hero, Leo Posen, a lothario 32 years her senior, sidles up to her bar, their instant connection leads to a passionate affair. Years later, with a bit of a wink from the author, Leo is moved to craft a novel around Franny and her family’s tragedy, enraging some of her relatives and leading to some unexpected reunions.

If you’re wondering whether Patchett identifies with a character, the answer is yes, but it may not be the one you expect. “People who have read this book go, oh, you’re Franny! But I’m Leo,” she says with a laugh. “The things that happened in this book didn’t happen. But, it’s all true. . . . The emotions are very close to home. Bel Canto is the same book: a story about not being able to go home and being trapped in a house with people that you don’t know who are scaring you, and forming alliances with them and loving them. That’s what this is. That’s my story.”

“The things that happened in this book didn’t happen. But, it’s all true. . . . The emotions are very close to home.”

Her experiences with her own blended family and her move from California to the South serve as the most obvious blueprint, and readers familiar with Patchett’s nonfiction will recognize autobiographical details aplenty. But the real question is, why tap into this wellspring now, after three decades of writing?

Patchett is aware that while she was drawn to play with her personal narrative, family members may not be as game to become fictionalized. “Writing things that are too close to home can work for some family members and not for others, and I think this book would not have worked for my father,” Patchett says. While she was working on the novel, however, she knew her father would not be alive to read the finished manuscript. He died of Parkinson’s disease in 2015.

Fix does share vague similarities with her father, but some of the most personal plot points are found in the later passages that deal with caring for a terminally ill loved one. “The Roz Chast memoir [Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?] had such an impact on this book. She takes a lot of ownership for her life and her past and says this is the way it is—this was hard and heartbreaking and exhausting.”

Patchett insists that waiting to write her most personal story was one of the best career choices she’s made, and after reading the novel, it’s hard to disagree. Commonwealth is an all-American family saga, but her touching and even-handed approach to themes such as family politics, love, the role of literature and the acidic nature of lies is buoyed by a generous sprinkling of matter-of-fact humor. It just might be her best novel yet, an assessment that Patchett agrees with.

“I feel like what I’ve been doing all my life is not writing Commonwealth. So now I have, and I’m hoping it will bring freedom.” She admits she already has an idea for another novel, and while she hasn’t started writing quite yet, she has made some notes.

“I just think it’s interesting to think about all the things we might be wrong about, all the things we were sure of. I was sure that I wasn’t going to write anything that seemed autobiographical. And then I did, and it was great. And now I’m thinking, what else are you sure you’re not going to do? I’m sure that I’m not going to write a first-person novel again. Well, why not do that?”

 

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

"How are you with dogs?” Ann Patchett asks as she holds back two curious greeters behind the front door. She ushers me inside her roomy red brick house to a comfortable living room drenched in morning sun. After she tries to convince me to adopt a deaf Border Collie from her sister (if only), her own rescue pup, Sparky, a tiny ball of black and white fur, makes himself comfortable on the couch between us.
FictionGraphic Novels & ComicsComics

Isabel Greenberg

Interview by Hilli Levin

Eisner Award-winning author and illustrator Isabel Greenberg takes readers back into the magical medieval world of her acclaimed 2013 graphic, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, with her new book, The One Hundred Nights of Hero. A bold and poignant play on the traditional story of Scheherazade in The Arabian Nights, Greenberg's tale follows Cherry and her quick-witted maid, Hero (a star-crossed couple secretly in love) through their 100-day ploy to distract a diabolical man by regaling him with with stories so compelling that he loses track of time altogether. The story of Cherry and Hero's brave fight against oppressive men who don't believe in women's literacy or rights is artfully entwined with Hero's empowering folk tales, which Greenberg brings to vivid life with her unique and playful line work.

We asked Greenberg a few questions about her fantastical world, female-focused stories, the challenges of working in the comics industry and more.

Describe One Hundred Nights of Hero in one sentence.
Feminist folk tales for a modern age.

This book builds on the magical world you created in your previous graphic. What drew you back in?
I felt there were still stories to be told in Early Earth. I think there probably still are, although I will probably be taking a break and trying a new setting for my next project! I love books that build imaginary worlds; I’ve always been a fan of authors like Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkein and Philip Pullman, and I always wanted to build my own. The difficulty of doing that is you become rather stuck in it! I felt a bit like it was going on even without me writing it!

The One Hundred Nights of Hero is very steeped in fairy tales and myth—what is it about these ancient forms of storytelling that inspires you?
I like the universality of the stories . . . the fact that there is a Cinderella story from virtually every culture. It's amazing to me how many times these stories have been told, and that’s why I like to use them and retell them. It seems very natural to me. The stories are extremely easy to adapt and to place your own characters on top of what is often a trope rather than a well drawn personality, meaning you have a lot of freedom to work within them. And finally, they are about such universal themes; love, jealousy, family etc. Who could not find something in there to relate to?

What do you love most about Hero and Cherry?
I love that they are there for each other. Cherry is more spontaneous, maybe a little spoiled. Hero is cautious, but also the one who spins the tales. They compliment each other, I hope. And I think they have a lot to say to each other!

In this novel, women are punished for reading, storytelling and sassiness. Why was it important for you to focus on strong, intelligent women in these stories?
I find this question interesting as when I wrote this book, I didn’t actually intend to make a statement about "strong intelligent women," I was just writing what I felt. I know lots of strong and intelligent women, and doesn’t seem remarkable to me. The fact that it has been so remarked upon in response to the book, as being something unusual, tells me that these stories do still need to be told. And that there is a need for characters like this. It doesn’t seem exceptional for books to feature "strong intelligent" men.

Have you come across many challenges as a woman, both as a writer and a reader, in this historically male-dominated sector of publishing?
As a reader I’ve been really excited to see that, in the U.K. at least, festivals and cons are full of women and girls, both fans and authors. Most of my favorite comic artists are women! As an author, being typecast as a "female comic artist" can be quite irritating. Obviously it is positive and necessary that spaces are being created for women within a traditionally male-dominated industry, but it can also be patronizing and condescending. Once I was given a rag doll as a prize at a "women in comics" themed event for example! Furthermore, the comics industry is not only traditionally very male, but also very white, and much more is needed to open it up to new voices.

What authors and artists have influenced you the most?
I love comics, and I love artists like Kate Beaton, Grace Wilson, Tillie Walden, Jillian Tamaki, Tove Janson and so many others. Mainly I think I have been most influenced by the novels I read growing up that I still love today; Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Pullman, J.R.R. Tolkein.

What is the most challenging aspect of working within the graphic novel as a format for storytelling? Most rewarding?
I love to draw, so I get immense pleasure from doing it. However, it can be quite an alarming moment when you finish writing and thumbnailing a 200 page book, think you are finished and then realize you now have to draw the whole thing! I love the writing and drawing equally and get as much enjoyment, in different ways, from both. I think what I find challenging is knowing when to stop using words and let the images speak for themselves. I work in quite a text heavy way anyway, but I love to write, and sometimes that can overtake the drawings!

How do you see the graphic genre and its literary importance evolving in the future?
I would like to see a time when comics and/or graphic novels (however you want to call them—I do not mind!) are not on their own shelf in the corner of bookshops, but are so commonplace and well thought of that they are shelved according to their genre; crime, biography, autobiography, fantasy etc., rather than in one section when they could be vastly different! Comics are not a genre—they are a medium.

Do you have any new projects on the horizon?
Yes! But it's too early to talk about!

Eisner Award-winning author and illustrator Isabel Greenberg takes readers back into the magical medieval world of her acclaimed 2013 graphic, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, with her new book, The One Hundred Nights of Hero. A bold and poignant play on the traditional story of Scheherazade in The Arabian Nights, Greenberg's tale follows Cherry and her quick-witted maid, Hero (a star-crossed couple secretly in love) through their 100-day ploy to distract a diabolical man by regaling him with with stories so compelling that he loses track of time altogether.

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